Psychoanalytical Deconstruction of Liberalism

Abstract

Deconstruction is a method adopted in Derrida philosophy to emphasize the state of dualities. According to deconstruction, the construction hides and keeps the dualities that create itself in order to present itself as a stable whole. The purpose of the deconstruction is to reveal the immanent instability of the construction, thus to unveil the hidden relation within in the construction. This methodical view of the deconstruction is compatible with the philosophy of psychoanalysis. As a philosophy, psychoanalysis emphasizes the incompleteness of Self-ideal and considers that what constitutes the construction of Self is not the self-conscious, but the unconscious that surrounds the conscious from somewhere uncertain. Psychoanalysis and deconstruction try to resolve the fact that unities, which are considered consistent and stable, is actually fragile. The aim of this essay is to discuss the instability and arbitrariness of the coherence attributed to the Self-ideal in the ideology of liberalism and to the market society in which Self-ideal is situated as a subject, by identifying commonalities in the philosophies of deconstruction and psychoanalysis. Liberalism affirms and normalizes market society by depending upon the coherence and integrity of subject of Self which is rational, autonomous and constitutes on the basis of egoism. This process of normalization is constantly being filled with efforts to preserve the intrinsic contradictions in the subject and in the market society in which the subject is effective. In this context, the fictive Self reaches to the self-cognition by positioning itself within the discourse of the Subject which is assumed as the immanence part of the capitalistic relationships. However, since the capitalist relations correspond to fictional contexts, the Subject, which is located within these relations, is itself transformed into the emptysignifier. So, the capitalistic relations derive its meaning from the empty-signifiers which liberalism imposes on the “Self” ideal. Capitalism hides its instability through producing “fictive reality” and “fictive Self” in which the concrete social reality cannot be noticed. In this study, the instability of the structure of the subject-centered is tried to be demonstrated with the psychoanalytical deconstruction. The purpose of bringing deconstruction and psychoanalyses together is to reveal the fictive production of both subject-centered social relations and the subject itself which is assumed as the central figure in these relationships. In other words, the psychoanalytical deconstruction focuses on revealing the invisibility of the discursive-structural instability ascribed to the subject.